Player Column – Haiden Schloithe Second Semi-Final

FOR me personally it was pretty exciting to play in my first final last Saturday. Obviously the last four or five years haven’t been as successful as we wanted to but to get to 15 wins this year and for me to finally play my first final along with 15 others was pretty exciting.

To then come out and perform the way we did as a team was really pleasing but we know that this Sunday there’s no tougher ask in the WAFL than playing the two-time reigning champs at Leederville. Hopefully the boys prepare well and we get ourselves up on Sunday.

The pace of the game certainly picked up a bit in that first final and the pressure was up. Those little mistakes can hurt you even more in finals footy but I thought to all the boys’ credit we handled the pressure and expectation really well. We wanted a good start and that 10 minutes was pretty impressive and we built on that for a really good win.

Given more than half our team had never played a final before it was really good to show that we can handle finals football. A few of us played colts finals together but you can’t really compare that to league finals football. Our ressies have been really successful too the last few years so a few of the boys played in finals there, but again a league final is a completely different level. But the boys all handled it really well and we performed the way we wanted to.

I was lucky enough to play in a colts premiership with five other guys who all played last Saturday and I’d like to say that helps us now, but it’s just so different playing at league level compared to the colts. We do have some good chemistry together and going back to that 2011 premiership big Mase kicked seven on the day and showed he was a big time player. Hopefully he can do that again on Sunday and then in the grand final if we are lucky enough to make it.

The only disappointing thing really from Saturday was Ash getting himself suspended. We all know how good a player he is and he again proved that against West Perth. It’s really disappointing but it’s lucky it’s only for a week and we’ve had key injuries throughout the year and blokes who have come up have performed well, so that will be no different this week.

I was one of those players who missed some games through injury in the second half of the year but I’m feeling really good now. My body’s in good shape and I’m happy with how my footy is going and how the team is performing. Hopefully again on Sunday I can have another good game to help contribute to a good win.

We know we have to go to another level to beat Subi on Sunday and they just play a good 120 minutes. You know it’s going to be a grind against them and you have to constantly play good footy for the whole game. There’s probably no real tricks to them but they grind you down, but if we can match that for 120 minutes we’ll have a good opportunity.

We go in with a lot of confidence. We obviously finished the end of the season really well and then to perform the way we did on Saturday was pleasing, but we know there’s no bigger task in the WAFL than playing against Subi. They’ve had a few weeks off but that probably doesn’t mean much. We know the first five or 10 minutes we have to come out with all guns blazing and hopefully we can continue that for the whole game.

We’ll certainly be trying to play to our strengths and everyone will be fit and available this week besides Ash, which is disappointing, but on the big ground it suits the way we want to play and hopefully we get a nice fine day so we can use our running game and take advantage of our talls up forward. Hopefully if we get a good start it will hold us in good stead.

We all know that our next win will put us into a grand final even though we’re trying not to look too far ahead. For me personally it’s pretty hard not to think about it because we are one game away from literally being there, but obviously we can’t look further ahead than Subi this weekend.

With Curls coming in last year it took us that year to learn how he wanted us to play and to get a few players back this year, and having another year Curls has given us good chemistry. We wanted 12 wins and we got 15 which was pleasing, and now we’ve played well in our first final and hopefully we can do the same this Sunday.